“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” – Dostoyevsky

If
what Dostoyevsky says is true – and I believe it is – then America,
which boasts the largest prison population in the world, is perhaps the
most uncivilized country there is. A bold statement, I know, especially
coming from someone who has spent the past 23 years behind bars. But if
what Dostoyevsky says is true, then what happens inside these places is
crucial to understanding what kind of society we live in; and who better
to speak to the reality of prison life than someone who is living the
experience?

But no one wants to
learn about the madness that predominates inside these places. People –
average, law-abiding citizens – are losing their homes and jobs and are
struggling to survive, and the last thing anyone wants to hear is how
hard prison is for a bunch of criminals. “If you can’t do the time,
don’t do the crime” is the prevailing sentiment and attitude. It never
occurs that the rising incarceration rate is connected to the same
economic and political policies that resulted in the home foreclosure
crisis and the rise in unemployment.

When
people think of crime, what usually comes to mind is a poor person
inflicting pain upon another poor person. Very seldom, if ever, do we
stop and allow ourselves to consider the forces that create crime;
trapped by the pull of our own necessities and fears, we live
reactively, focusing on the effects instead of the causes of what we see
and believe – and so we remain divided. And it’s precisely because of
this division that we are our own worst enemies – divided, they rule us!

But who are “they,” and what do they have to do with the way in which we see and treat each other?

Howard
Zinn, in his book “A People’s History of the United States,” tells us
who they are and how they use us against one another:

“[T]he
wealthiest one percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth. The
rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the
99 percent against one another: small property owners against the
propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born,
intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and unskilled …”

Hence,
in the context of a capitalistic society, crime is the result of an
unequal distribution of wealth. As such, a distinction between guilt and
responsibility must be made. For instance, a person can be guilty of
selling drugs but not at all responsible for creating the conditions
wherein selling drugs is the only viable option for survival. Indeed,
when one lives in a society where profit takes precedence over human
potential, one’s very existence becomes a crime; and whether this takes
on the form of selling drugs, stealing food or joining a gang to fight
over turf and limited resources, the goal is to stay alive.

When
one lives in a society where profit takes precedence over human
potential, one’s very existence becomes a crime; and whether this takes
on the form of selling drugs, stealing food or joining a gang to fight
over turf and limited resources, the goal is to stay alive.

I
grew up in poverty, born to a marginally educated Black woman who,
because of a lack of opportunity, sought to raise me and my three
siblings on welfare. In the whole 42 years I’ve been alive, I’ve only
seen my father one time. By the age of 10, I was stealing food from the
neighborhood grocery store in order to survive. I was 13 when I took my
first joyless joyride in a stolen vehicle, which ultimately led to my
being sent away for the first time. By the time I turned 17, I had been
living on my own for several years and selling drugs in one of the most
impoverished, drug-infested neighborhoods in Cleveland, Ohio. A few
months after my 19th birthday, in 1988, the year crack cocaine became an
epidemic, I was involved in a shoot-out over money and I killed a rival
drug dealer. For this, I was sent to prison to serve a life sentence
for murder.

In
a nutshell, this is the story of my life, and if any of it was unique,
the telling of it would be inconsequential, an unnecessary recounting of
my own personal troubles. However, what makes my story significant is
that it’s the exact same tale told by millions of poor people who grow
up in the slums of America, which points to the possibility of there
being something larger than one’s personal troubles at work in the
process to determine where one ends up in this society.

In
his groundbreaking work on “The Sociological Imagination,” C. Wright
Mills, using the example of unemployment, explains the difference
between personal troubles and societal issues:

“When,
in a society of 100,000, only one man is unemployed, that is his
personal trouble, and for its relief we properly look to the character
of the man, his skills, and his immediate opportunities. But when in a
nation of 50 million employees, 15 million men are unemployed, that is
an issue, and we may not hope to find its solution within the range of
opportunities open to any one individual. The very structure of
opportunities has collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem
and the range of possible solutions require us to consider the economic
and political institutions of society, and not merely the personal
situation of a scatter of individuals.”

Applying
the same logic, it should be considered an issue that Black people – in
a country wherein they represent only 13 percent of the population –
make up 50 percent of those who are sent to prison. It is likewise an
issue that virtually 100 percent of those behind bars are poor and come
from economically deprived sections of society.

In
addressing this issue, it’s not enough to point the finger at a bunch
of so-called criminals and, without first looking at the economic and
political institutions of society, claim that they are the sole cause of
their predicament.

Despite
what those in power would have us believe, no one starts out with the
goal of becoming a criminal and spending the bulk of his life behind
bars and in and out of prison. As individuals, we make choices based on
what we perceive our options to be; and those options, be they good or
bad, are a product of the society we live in.

“When
a society is industrialized,” explains C. Wright Mills, “a peasant
becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman.
When classes rise and fall, a man is employed or unemployed; when the
rate of investment goes up or down, a man takes new heart or goes broke.
When wars happen, an insurance salesman becomes a rocket launcher; a
store clerk, a radar man; a wife lives alone; a child grows up without a
father.”

Similarly,
when a society is deindustrialized, a steel worker becomes a
corrections officer; a would-be college student, a drug dealer. When
communities are decimated and hemmed in by poverty, families take new
heart or fall apart. When a fictitious “War on Drugs” is declared on the
inner-city, penitentiaries are built in rural areas and filled with
criminals; a wife lives alone; a child grows up without a father.

When
a society is deindustrialized, a steel worker becomes a corrections
officer; a would-be college student, a drug dealer. When a fictitious
“War on Drugs” is declared on the inner-city, penitentiaries are built
in rural areas and filled with criminals; a wife lives alone; a child
grows up without a father.

Contrary
to what we have been told, this is how life (under the system of
capitalism) unfolds – not in a picnic basket of unlimited opportunity,
but in a crucible of socioeconomic forces that force us to assume
positions of survival. Thus, a steel worker becomes a corrections
officer, not in pursuit of a lifelong dream but in order to feed his
family. A boy growing up in the ghetto becomes a criminal gang banger,
not to glorify crime but in order to survive. And what C. Wright Mills
would have us understand is that the various permutations that we as
individuals undergo are directly connected to the economic and political
permutations of the system.

When
corporations, through Congress, lobby for the enactment of NAFTA (the
North American Free Trade Agreement), removing obstacles for corporate
capital and goods to move back and forth between Mexico and the United
States, they do so with full knowledge and understanding of the economic
consequences. Cheaper labor means greater profits; but it also means
the closing of factories, a lower standard of living, a subpar
educational system and an increase in crime, as normal, everyday
citizens scramble to survive. And what do those in power do in order to
address the ramifications of their decisions? They build more prisons.

With
the advent of deindustrialization in the 1980s, the prison population
in the United States more than quadrupled, peaking at 2.5 million and
surpassing both South Africa and Russia in per capita prison
populations. During the same period (1980-2007) – while 30 million
people languished below the poverty line – the United States produced
1,000 billionaires and 227,000 millionaires with the combined worth of
$30 trillion, more than the GDPs of China, Brazil, Japan, Russia and the
EU put together. This is how the system of capitalism works: The rich
get richer, and the poor get screwed – i.e., fucked in the anus sans
grease!

In
his book “Understanding Power,” Noam Chomsky talks about what he refers
to as “superfluous populations,” which is a very intellectual way of
calling people “trash.” From the perspective of the rich, whose main
objective is to accumulate wealth, human beings are useless when they no
longer contribute to profit-making so, as a result, explains Noam
Chomsky, they want to get rid of them – and the criminal justice system
is one of the best ways of doing it.

So
prisons – it must be understood – aren’t about controlling crime and
punishing those who commit it; they’re about controlling the poor.
Looked at correctly, it’s not an exaggeration to say that what is going
on now is very similar to what was going on in the 1940s when Hitler was
exterminating the Jews. The only real difference is that those who are
now being thrown away are considered “criminals” which, let’s face it,
makes it a whole lot easier to accept. But just as Hitler created the
justification for the mass extermination of the Jews, so, too, have
those in power created the justification for the mass incarceration of
the poor.

Prisons
– it must be understood – aren’t about controlling crime and punishing
those who commit it; they’re about controlling the poor.

When
Ronald Reagan declared the so-called War on Drugs in the 1980s, a
finely honed strategy of imposing mandatory sentences for particular
kinds of drugs (read: crack cocaine) was used to lock up those from
predominantly Black and Hispanic communities. For instance, a young man
in the ghetto gets caught with a kilo of cocaine or $20,000 in cash, and
he is sent to prison for 20 years. In the meantime, nothing is said
about the chemical corporations who make billions of dollars from
sending the necessary chemicals to Latin America in order to manufacture
the very drugs that are destroying inner-cities throughout the United
States.

And
what about the bankers who launder billions of dollars in drug money
through American banks? According to the OECD (Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development), it’s estimated that a half-trillion
dollars in drug money gets laundered internationally each year – more
than half of it ($260 billion) through American banks. But are any of
these people in prison? The answer is NO! And the reason why none of
these people are in prison is because those in power determine what
constitutes a crime and, more importantly, who gets categorized as
criminals. A white man laundering billions of dollars in drug money is a
businessman. A Black man selling drugs in the ghetto is a criminal; and
for his “crimes,” he is sent to prison.

And
what happens to that Black – or poor White or Hispanic – man when he
enters America’s prisons? If he makes it through orientation without
being raped, he’s lucky. It’s a brutal world in here, and unless one is
totally devoid of common sense, one very quickly learns that there is
safety in numbers. In other words, the picture repeats and expands, and
it’s the ghetto streets all over again. But in here the police operate
without restraint, and the old adage about “absolute power corrupting
absolutely” is on full display. Not a day goes by without someone being
sprayed in the face with mace, shot with a pellet gun or thrown down a
flight of stairs.

Those
in power determine what constitutes a crime and who gets categorized as
criminals. A white man laundering billions of dollars in drug money is a
businessman. A Black man selling drugs in the ghetto is a criminal; and
for his “crimes,” he is sent to prison.

A
few weeks ago, while watching the news, I witnessed a group of college
students in California being sprayed in the face with mace because they
had the audacity to protest against the rising cost of college tuition,
student-loan debt and the uncertainty surrounding future employment. In
New York City and around the country, I witnessed members of Occupy Wall
Street being forcibly evicted from their camps, some – as in Oakland,
California – being shot with pellet guns, thrown atop automobiles, and
kicked and shoved about like cattle. Watching these things, it occurred
to me that this is what Dostoyevsky must have meant when he said, “The
degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its
prisons.” Indeed, what many Americans witnessed and experienced for the
first time is something that those of us in prison witness and
experience on a daily basis.

So
why are normal, everyday citizens being treated as criminals, and for
what crimes are they being punished? From the perspective of those who
own society, it’s considered a lack of appreciation when slaves rise up
to question their masters; and of course when people come together and
begin to talk earnestly about the inequity of the system, they
automatically represent a threat to the status quo and must go. Then we
learn how thin the veneer of civilization really is, and how fragile our
so-called freedoms are.

When
eyes are burning with mace, when blood is dripping down the face, it
all becomes frighteningly clear: Capitalism is a sham; and whether in or
out of prison, as long as we live under a system that views everything
and everybody as a commodity, we’re all doing time. And that, at the end
of the day, is the real crime – not that some of us are locked up, but
that none of us are free!